"Witch House" flooded, other outsider art sites safe

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The basement of the Mary Nohl House, often called the "Witch House," in Fox Point has been flooded, according to Terri Yoho, executive director of the Kohler Foundation, which preserves built environments by what are sometimes called outsider or vernacular artists. The house and yard, richly populated with sculptures by the late artist Mary Nohl, do not appear to have been damaged.

"There was water/sewage in the basement...as a result of a lift station malfunction during the heavy rains," Yoho wrote in an email. "We had perhaps five or six inches in the basement where a large number of ceramic pieces were stored. We removed them, had an environmental team in to clean and sanitize, and are now washing all the ceramics under the supervision of an objects conservator. We were very fortunate not to have any permanent damage--just a huge inconvenience. Thankfully, the ceramics were in cartons and not directly on the floor. We fared much better than others."

Many built environments by outsider artists exist along the Mississippi and in flooded areas of the Midwest, though it appears no significant sites have been damaged, said Yoho, who is getting email updates from around the region.

There was flooding around Ernest Hupeden's late 19th century Painted Forest, in Valton, though the site, which sits up on a hill, appears to be safe. Hupeden, an intinerant painter, created murals for drinking money in small towns. The Painted Forest covers every inch of wall space in what was then a meeting hall of the Modern Woodmen of America and is filled with secretive iconography. About 40 people live in Valton today, which is at about the midpoint between Madison and La Crosse.

The Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden & Museum, in Cochran, along the Mississippi, is just north enough to have escaped the flooding, Yoho said. Cochrane is about 50 miles north of La Crosse. The site, created by Herman Rusch starting in the 1950s, is filled with curios, quirky machines and Rusch's own sculptures, placed around the grounds and embellished with sea shells, bits of glass and mirrors. They included a Hindu temple, dinosaurs and a mini mountain.

What remains an open question is Tom Every's Forevertron, in North Freedom, Wisconsin, near Baraboo. The nearly 400-ton Forevertron is Every's "celestial craft," created from industrial wreckage from factories, breweries and mills. It is outfitted with everything from a junked fast-food sign to a decontamination chamber from an Apollo space mission. Yoho says she's not sure but that the area may be flooded with water. However, the resilient materials of the welded-together sculptural array may not be harmed by water in any case, she said.

If anyone has any additional information about about how these outsider artist sites and other cultural sites are faring, please email me (mschumacher@journalsentinel.com) information.

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